Trophy APS

Israel’s battle-proven hard-kill active protection system — the first to shoot down an anti-tank missile in combat, now protecting armoured fleets from Gaza to Europe.

Overview

Trophy, known in the Israel Defense Forces as Meil Ruach (Windbreaker) and marketed abroad as Trophy HV, MV, VPS and LV, is a hard-kill active protection system (APS) developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems with Elta radar technology. The system detects, tracks and defeats incoming chemical-energy anti-armour threats — RPGs, recoilless-rifle projectiles and anti-tank guided missiles — at a safe stand-off distance, while simultaneously locating the shooter and feeding the firing point into the vehicle’s battle-management system. Combat-proven since 2011, Trophy is fielded on the Merkava family, adapted to the M1 Abrams and Leopard 2, and selected for the British Challenger 3, making it the de facto Western APS standard.

Development

Rafael and Elta began work on a hard-kill APS in the 1990s, but the programme gained real urgency after Hizbullah’s 2006 ambushes in Lebanon, in which dozens of Merkava tanks were damaged by Kornet and RPG-29 hits. According to the Leonardo DRS product page, the project moved rapidly from emergency requirement to operational hardware, and serial IDF fielding started in August 2009 on Merkava Mk 4M tanks. The system made history on 1 March 2011 when a Merkava near the Gaza border intercepted an incoming missile — the first ever combat kill by an active protection system, as recorded by Wikipedia. Over the following decade the architecture was scaled-down for lighter vehicles, and through the EuroTrophy joint venture (Rafael, GDELS, KNDS) and a US-production line with Leonardo DRS, Trophy became available to NATO customers.

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